2004 Bulgarian
woman nurses Kristiyana Valcheva, Nassya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valya
Chervenyashka, and Snezhana Dimitrova; and Palestinian physician Ashraf
Gomaa; [in court in 2003 >] are sentenced to death by firing
squad, in a Benghazi, Libya, court by a panel of five judges headed by Fadallah
el-Sherif, for having infected 426 Libyan children with HIV-contaminated
blood as part of an experiment to find a cure for AIDS. Twenty-three of
the children reportedly have died of AIDS. The Bulgarian government says:
"This trial cannot be called just, as not a single proof provided by the
defense has been taken into account. The verdict is based solely on confessions
made by some of the defendants under duress." The defendants reported being
tortured by extensive use of electric shocks; being suspended by the arms;
being blindfolded and threatened with being attacked by barking dogs; and
beatings, including falaqa (beatings on the soles of the feet), and being
beaten with electric cables, and repeatedly jumped on while strapped to
their beds. Two of the women said they were raped. Dr. Luc Montagnier, the
French co-discoverer of the AIDS virus, testified that poor hygiene at the
Benghazi hospital is likely to have led to the contamination. He estimated
that it happened in 1997, more than a year before the defendants (who were
arrested in 1999) were hired to work in Libya. The European Union and such
human rights organizations as Amnesty
International have protested against the injustice.

2004
David Freidel, an anthropology professor at Southern Methodist University,
who, with archaeologist Hector Escobedo of Universidad San Carlos de Guatemala,
lead a team excavating the Waka' (modern El Peru) site in the largest (900
sq km) Guatemalan national park, Laguna del Tigre, announces that in February
2004 they discovered there the 3.5x1.2x2m tomb of a Mayan queen, with many
artifacts.

2003
Late the previous day, Looksmart Ltd (which runs an inferior search engine
at http://www.looksmart.com/
useful only if you want to be targeted by advertising) makes an earnings
announcement that does not succeed in concealing that they are lower than
analysts' expectations. Consequently, its stock (LOOK) is downgraded by
First Albany from Buy to Neutral. On the NASDAQ 23.5 million of the 102
million LOOK shares are traded, dropping from their previous close of $3.48
to an intraday low of $2.00 and closing at $2.17. They had traded as low
as $0.77 as recently as 07 October 2003 and as high as $69.63 ot 06 March
2000. [4~year price chart >]

2002
The regime of US usurper-president “Dubya” Bush writes to the
UN Secretary-General to inform him that the USA does not intend to become
a party to the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court, and therefore “has no legal obligations arising
from its signature on 31 December 2000”. During 2002, the Bush regime
approaches several governments requesting that they enter into agreements
that they would not surrender US nationals accused of genocide, crimes against
humanity and war crimes to the new International Criminal Court. In some
cases, the US usurper-government threatens to withdraw military assistance
from countries that would not agree.

^
2000LoveLetter
E-mail worm keeps anti-virus sites busy
The Symantec
AntiVirus Research center began receiving reports regarding this worm
in the early morning of 04 May 2000 UT. This worm appears to originate from
Manila, Phillipines. It has wide-spread distribution, infecting millions
of computers. This worm sends itself
to email addresses in the Microsoft Outlook address book and also spreads
itself into Internet chatrooms via mIRC. This worm overwrites files on local
and remote drives, including files with the extensions .vbs, .vbe, .js,
.jse, .css, .wsh, .sct, .hta, .jpg, .jpeg, .mp3, and .mp2. The contents
of these files will be replaced with the source code of the worm, thus destroying
the original contents. The worm will also append the extension '.vbs' to
each of these files. For example, the file image.jpg will become image.jpg.vbs.
However, files with .mp2 and .mp3 extensions will merely be hidden from
the user's view and not actually destroyed. It also tries to download a
password-stealing Trojan horse program from a Web site (however that web
site was soon removed by the provider). Symantec has identified eight variants
of VBS.LoveLetter.A. This information is current as of 06 May 2000 at 07:30
(PST)

VBS.LoveLetter.D (also known as BugFix)Norton AntiVirus detects as: VBS.LoveLetter.A(1)ATTACHMENT: same as ASUBJECT LINE: same as AMESSAGE BODY: same as AMISC. NOTES: registry entry: WIN  BUGSFIX.exe
instead of WIN-BUGSFIX.exe

VBS.LoveLetter.E (also known as Mother's Day)Norton AntiVirus detects as: VBS.LoveLetter.Variant.EATTACHMENT: mothersday.vbsSUBJECT LINE: Mothers Day Order ConfirmationMESSAGE BODY: We have proceeded to charge your credit
card for the amount of $326.92 for the mothers day diamond special.
We have attached a detailed invoice to this email. Please print out
the attachment and keep it in a safe place.Thanks Again and Have a Happy
Mothers Day! mothersday@subdimension.comMISC. NOTES: mothersday.HTM sent in IRC, and comment:
rem hackers.com, and start up page to hackes.com, l0pht.com, or 2600.com

VBS.LoveLetter.H (also known as No Comments)Norton AntiVirus detects as: VBS.LoveLetter.AATTACHMENT: same as ASUBJECT LINE: same as AMESSAGE BODY: same a AMISC. NOTES: the comment lines at the beginning of
the worm code have been removed.

Swede claims to have found worm's originator
Swedish computer expert Fredrik Bjoerck, who
helped the FBI track down the Melissa e-mail virus in 1999, said Friday
000505 evening: "I can say on good grounds that I have probably found the
creator of the virus Loveletter." Bjoerck,
a postgraduate student at Stockholm University's computer and information
technology institute, said he started searching for the creator on Thursday
000504 [when it first was detected] "The creator's name is Michael and he
is a German exchange student studying in Australia. He has exposed himself
by leaving tracks in Usenet newsgroups. The virus was activated from the
Philippines but it's not certain that Michael was there in person."

^
1997 GTE to buy Internet pioneer BBN
GTE announces it will buy Internet
pioneer BBN. The company, also known as Bolt, Beranek and Newman,
had been a major force in building and operating the original ARPA
network, which eventually became the Internet. Founded in 1948 as
an acoustics consulting firm, BBN hired Joseph
Carl Robnett Licklider [11 Mar 1915 – 26 Jun 1990] in 1957
for his expertise in both acoustics and the emerging field of human-machine
interaction. The company encouraged Licklider's interest in computers
and soon diversified into computer science. Licklider left the company
in 1962 to join the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPA), where he made computers and technology a high priority.
In 1968, when an ARPA proposal to build a computer network was approved,
BBN won the contract and subsequently designed and built the hardware
for the early network.

1994 Chunnel
opens During
a ceremony presided over by England's Queen Elizabeth II [21 Apr 1926~]
and French President Francois Mitterand [26 Oct 1916 – 08 Jan
1996], a rail tunnel under the English Channel, connecting Britain
and the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age, is
officially opened. The channel tunnel, or "Chunnel," connects Folkestone,
England, with Calais, France, nearly forty kilometers away.
Napoleon's engineer, Albert Mathieu,
planned the first tunnel under the English Channel in 1802, envisioning
an underground passage with ventilation chimneys that would stretch
above the waves. In 1880, the first real attempt was made by Colonel
Beaumont, who bore 2000 meters into the earth before abandoning the
project. Other efforts followed in the twentieth century, but none
on the scale of the current tunnels begun in 1987.
At a cost of over thirteen million dollars, more than seventeen million
tons of earth were moved to build the two rail tunnels  one
for northbound and one for southbound traffic  and one service
tunnel. On 01 December 1990, engineers and workers digging from
France and Britain met and shook hands under the Channel, and on 06 May
1994, the Chunnel was officially opened.

^1992 Gorbachev looks
back on Cold War
In an event steeped in symbolism, former Soviet ruler Mikhail Sergeyevich
Gorbachev [02 Mar 1931~] reviews the Cold War in a speech at Westminster
College in Fulton, Missouri-the site of Winston Churchill's "Iron
Curtain" speech 46 years before. Gorbachev mixed praise for the end
of the Cold War with some pointed criticisms of US. policy. In 1946,
Winston Churchill, former prime minister of Britain, spoke at Westminster
College and issued what many historians have come to consider the
opening volley of the Cold War. Declaring that an "iron curtain" had
fallen across Eastern Europe, Churchill challenged both Great Britain
and the United States to contain Soviet aggression. Forty-six years
later, the Soviet Union had collapsed and Mikhail Gorbachev, who had
resigned as president of the Soviet Union in December 1991, stood
on the very same campus and reflected on the Cold War. Gorbachev declared
that the end of the Cold War was the "shattering of the vicious circle
into which we had driven ourselves" and a "victory for common sense,
reason, democracy, and common human values." In addressing the issue
of who began the Cold War, Gorbachev admitted that the Soviet Union
had made some serious mistakes, but also suggested that the United
States and Great Britain shouldered part of the blame. He decried
the resulting nuclear arms race, though he made clear that he believed
the United States had been the "initiator" of this folly. With the
Cold War over, he cautioned the United States to realize the "intellectual,
and consequently political error, of interpreting victory in the cold
war narrowly as a victory for oneself." Gorbachev's speech, and particularly
the location at which he delivered it, offered a fitting closure to
the Cold War, and demonstrated that scholarly debate about those years
would continue though the animosity had come to an end.

Laurent-Marie-Joseph-Marius
Imbert[23 Mar 1796 – 21 Sep 1839], bishop
born in Marignane, France; ordained a priest of Missions Étrangères
de Paris on 18 December 1819; on 14 May 1837. In 1822 and 1823
he was a missionary in Tonkin, French Indochina. Then he spent
twelve years in Szechuan province, China, where he founded a seminary
in Moupin. On 14 May 1837 he was consecrated bishop as Vicar Apostolic
of Korea (appointed on 26 April 1836). Later that year he crossed
secretly from Manchuria to Korea, which was undergoing persecution
of Catholics. On 10 August 1839, Bishop Imbert, who was secretly
going about his missionary work, was betrayed. Knowing that he
would be arrested and killed, he celebrated Mass and surrendered
himself. He was taken to Seoul where he was tortured to reveal
the whereabouts of foreign missionaries. Believing that his converts
(who were being tortured to reveal the whereabouts of the missionaries)
would be spared if all foreign missionaries gave themselves up,
he wrote to Fathers Chastan (#2) and Maubant (#3): “le bon
pasteur donne sa vie pour ses brebis” and asking them to
surrender themselves. They did and the three of them were imprisoned
together. They were taken before an interrogator and tortured
for three days to get them to reveal the names and whereabouts
of their converts. They didn't and were beheaded at Saenamteo,
Korea.

Pierre-Philibert Maubant [– 21 Sep 1839],
the first priest of Missions Étrangères de Paris
who succeeded in entering Korea, crossing the northern frontier
by way of Eui-tjyou in January 1836.

Siméon-François Berneux [14 May
1814 – 08 Mar 1866], bishop born in Château-du-Loir,
France; ordained a priest of Missions Étrangères
de Paris on 20 May 1837; on 27 December 1854 consecrated bishop
as Vicar Apostolic of Korea (appointed on 05 August 1854).

Just de Bretenières [–08 Mar 1866] (priest)

Bernard Louis Beaulieu [–08 Mar 1866]
(priest)

Pierre Henri Dorie [–08 Mar 1866] (priest)

Antoine-Marie-Nicolas Daveluy [16 Mar
1818 – 30 Mar 1866], bishop born in Amiens, France; ordained
a priest of Missions Étrangères de Paris on 18 December
1841; on 25 March 1857 consecrated bishop (by bishop Berneux)
as Coadjutor Vicar Apostolic of Korea (appointed on 13 November
1855); succeeded as Vicar Apostolic at the death of bishop Berneux.

Martin Luke Huin [–30 Mar 1866] (priest)

Peter Aumaître [–30 Mar 1866] (priest)

Andrew Kim Taegon [21 Aug 1821 – 16 Sep
1846], first Korean priest. He studied at a seminary in Macau
and was ordained a priest in Shanghai six years later. He returned
to Korea in 1845. He was tortured and beheaded.

Anthony Kim Son-u, convert, father of Father
Kim (#6)

Joseph Chang Chugi (priest)

Paul Chong Hasang [–22 Sep 1839], son
of Cecilia Yu (#22) and Yak Jong Church (not canonized) who was
martyred in 1801 in the persecution of Shin-Yu, which killed all
the clergy in the country ; brother of Jung Hye (#23). Paul, a
layman, reunited the scattered Christians, and encouraged them
to live their faith. He wrote the Sang-Je-Sang-Su which
explained to the Korean government why the Church was not a threat.
He went to China nine times, working as a servant to the Korean
diplomatic corps. He got the bishop of Beijing to send more priests
to Korea. He pleaded directly to Rome for help, and on 09 September
1831, Pope Gregory X proclaimed the validity of the Korean Catholic
diocese. When the clergy began to return, Paul entered the seminary.
But he died in the Gi Hye persecution of 1839 before he could
be ordained.

Peter Cho Kwaso, who said: “Even
supposing that one’s own father committed a crime, still
one cannot disown him as no longer being one’s father. How
then can I say that I do not know the heavenly Lord Father who
is so good?”.

Peter Chong Wonji

Peter Hong Pyongju

Peter Kwon Tugin

Peter Ryau [1826 – 31 Dec 1839].
He turned himself in as required by the persecution law. He was
tortured to the point that his arms and legs were shredded. To
demonstrate the cruelty of the judges, his pulled off some of
his torn flesh and threw it at the feet of the judges. They sent
him back to prison to be strangled.

Peter Yi Hoyong

Peter Yi Myongs

Peter Yu Tae-Chol, 13, the youngest

Protasius Chong Kurbo

Thomas Son Chason

Sebastian Nam

Agnes Kim Hyoju [–26 Sep 1839] and her sister

Columba Kim Hyo-im [1813 – 26 Sep 1839]. They
were tortured by being pierced with red-hot awls. Stripped naked
they were placed in a cell with male prisoners, who respected
them. They were beheaded in Seoul.

Alex U Seyong

Agatha Chon Kyonghyob (nun)

Agatha Kim

Agatha Kwon Chini

Agatha Yi Kannan

Agatha Yi Kyong-i

Agatha Yi Sosa

Agatha Yi , 17. When she and her younger brother
were falsely told that their parents had betrayed the faith, she
said: “Since the Lord of Heaven is the Father of all mankind
and the Lord of all creation, how can you ask me to betray him?
Even in this world anyone who betrays his own father or mother
will not be forgiven. All the more may I never betray him who
is the Father of us all”. Hearing this, six other adult
Christians freely delivered themselves to the magistrate to be
martyred. They and Agatha's parents are among the 103 canonized
today.

Anne Kim

Anne Pak A-gi

Barbara Ch'oe Yong-i

Barbara Cho Chung-i

Barbara Han Agi

Barbara Kim

Barbara Ko Suni

Barbara Kwon Hui

Barbara Yi Chong-hui

Barbara Yi

Benedicta Hyon Kyongnyon

Catherine Chong Ch'oryom

Catherine Yi

Elisabeth Chong Chong-hye (virgin)

Juliet Kim (virgin)

Lucia Kim

Lucia Park Huisun

Magdalena Ho Kye-im

Magdalene Cho

Magdalene Han Yong-i

Magdalene Kim Obi

Magdalene Pak Pongson (widow)

Magdalene Son Sobyog

Magdalene Yi Yong-hui

Magdalene Yi Yongdog

Maria Park K'unagi

Maria Won Kwi-im (virgin)

Maria Yi Indog

Maria Yi Yonhui

Martha Kim

Perpetua Hong Kumju (widow)

Rosa Kim (widow)

Susanna U Surim

Teresa Kim Imi

Teresa Yi Mae-im

Pope John Paul II performed the ceremony
in Seoul. [his
homily] —(070920)

1972 South Vietnamese
defenders hold on to An Loc
The remnants of South Vietnam's 5th Division at An Loc continue to
receive daily artillery battering from the communist forces surrounding
the city as reinforcements fight their way from the south up Highway
13. The South Vietnamese had been under heavy attack since the North
Vietnamese had launched their Nguyen Hue Offensive on 30 March 1972.
The communists had mounted a massive invasion of South Vietnam with
14 infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, more than 120'000
troops and approximately 1200 tanks and other armored vehicles.
The main North Vietnamese objectives,
in addition to An Loc in the south, were Quang Tri in the north, and
Kontum in the Central Highlands. In Binh Long Province, the North
Vietnamese forces had crossed into South Vietnam from Cambodia on
05 April 1972 to strike first at Loc Ninh. After taking Loc Ninh,
the North Vietnamese forces then quickly encircled An Loc, the capital
of Binh Long Province, which was only 100 km from Saigon.
The North Vietnamese held An Loc under siege for almost three months
while they made repeated attempts to take the city, bombarding it
around the clock. The defenders suffered heavy casualties, including
2300 dead or missing, but with the aid of US. advisers and American
airpower, they managed to hold out against vastly superior odds until
the siege was lifted on 18 June 1972. Fighting continued all over
South Vietnam into the summer months, but eventually the South Vietnamese
forces prevailed against the invaders and they retook Quang Tri in
September. With the Communist
invasion blunted, President Nixon [09 Jan 1913 – 22 Apr 1994]
declared that the South Vietnamese victory proved the viability of
his Vietnamization program, which he had instituted in 1969 to increase
the combat capability of the South Vietnamese armed forces.

^1970 Protests
against killings of anti-Vietnam-War students.
Hundreds of colleges and universities
across the nation shut down as thousands of students join a nationwide
campus protest. Governor Ronald Reagan [06 Feb 1911 – 05 Jun
2004] closed down the entire California university and college system
until 11 May, which affected more than 280'000 students on 28
campuses. Elsewhere, faculty and administrators joined students in
active dissent and 536 campuses were shut down completely, 51 for
the rest of the academic year. A National Student Association spokesman
reported students from more than 300 campuses were boycotting classes.
The protests were a reaction to the 04
May 1970 shooting of four students at Kent State University by
National Guardsmen during a campus demonstration about the decision
by President Nixon [09 Jan 1913 – 22 Apr 1994] to send US. and
South Vietnamese troops into Cambodia. Four days later, a student
rally at Jackson State College in Mississippi resulted in the death
of two students and 12 wounded when police opened fire on a women's
dormitory.

^1942 The Battle
of the Coral Sea ends
This is the fourth and last day of the first modern naval engagement
in history, called the Battle of the Coral Sea. On 03 May 1942 a Japanese
invasion force had succeeded in occupying Tulagi of the Solomon Islands
in an expansion of Japan's defensive perimeter. The United States,
having broken Japan's secret war code and forewarned of an impending
invasion of Tulagi and Port Moresby, attempted to intercept the Japanese
armada. Four days of battles
between Japanese and US aircraft carriers resulted in 70 Japanese
and 66 US warplanes destroyed. This confrontation, called the Battle
of the Coral Sea, marked the first air-naval battle in history, as
none of the carriers fired at each other, allowing the planes taking
off from their decks to do the battling. Among the casualties was
the US carrier Lexington; "the Blue Ghost" (so-called because
it was not camouflaged like other carriers) suffered such extensive
aerial damage that it had to be sunk by its own crew. Two hundred
sixteen Lexington crewmen died as a result of the Japanese
aerial bombardment. Although
Japan would go on to occupy all of the Solomon Islands, its victory
was a Pyrrhic one: the cost in experienced pilots and aircraft carriers
was so great that Japan had to cancel its expedition to Port Moresby,
Papua, as well as other South Pacific targets.

^1942 US surrenders
to Japan in the Philippines.
Lieut. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright [23 Aug 1883 – 02 Sep 1953]
surrenders Corregidor Island, the last Allied stronghold in the Philippines,
to Japanese Lieut. Gen. Homma Masaharu.
The small (5-sq-km) island in Manila Bay, part of the province of
Cavite, has long been considered a natural fortress. The Spanish fortified
it in the 18th century, when it was used as a registration (corregidor)
site for ships entering the bay. After the Spanish-American War, the
island became a US. military station, and an elaborate system of tunnels
and emplacements was constructed.
When Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941 December, Gen. Douglas
MacArthur chose Bataan province and, just south of it, Corregidor
Island as his major defense positions. In
early April 1942, General Wainwright, in command of the Phillippines'
surviving defenders, began evacuating as many troops as possible to
Corregidor. On 09 April, 12'000 American and 63'000 Filipino
troops were trapped on Luzon as Bataan fell, and Corregidor became
the last outpost of organized resistance in the islands. Lacking air
or naval support, Corregidor's 15'000 American and Filipino defenders
kept up a desperate resistance against massive assaults by Japan's
combined armed forces. Constant
artillery shelling and aerial bombardment attacks had eaten away at
the American and Filipino defenders. Although still managing to sink
many Japanese barges as they approached the northern shores of the
island, the Allied troops could hold the invader off no longer. General
Wainwright, only recently promoted to the rank of lieutenant general
and commander of the US. armed forces in the Philippines, offered
to surrender Corregidor to Japanese General Homma, but Homma wanted
the complete, unconditional capitulation of all American forces throughout
the Philippines. Wainwright had little choice given the odds against
him and the poor physical condition of his troops (he had already
lost 800 men). He surrendered at midnight. All 11'500 surviving Allied
troops were evacuated to a prison stockade in Manila. General Wainwright
remained a POW until 1945. However,
just three months after the surrender, US. forces under General Douglas
MacArthur launched their great Pacific counteroffensive. On 20 October
1944, after advancing island by island, US. forces waded ashore onto
the island of Leyte, and the liberation of the Philippines began.
On 16 February 1945, US. paratroopers descended on Corregidor,
and ten days later, liberation of the fortified island was complete.
As a sort of consolation for the massive defeat Wainwright suffered,
he was present on the USS Missouri for the formal Japanese surrender
ceremony on 02 September 1945. He would also be awarded the Congressional
Medal of Honor by President Harry Truman. Wainwright died in 1953
 exactly eight years to the day of the Japanese surrender ceremony.

^1939 John Steinbeck
wins a Pulitzer for The Grapes of Wrath
The novel traces the fictional Joad
family of Oklahoma as they lose their family farm and move to California
in search of a better life. They encounter only more difficulties
and a downward slide into poverty. The book combines simple, plain-spoken
language and compelling plot with rich description. One of Steinbeck's
most effective works of social commentary, the novel also won the
National Book Award. Like The
Grapes of Wrath, much of Steinbeck's work dealt with his native
state of California. He was born and raised in the Salinas Valley,
where his father was a county official and his mother a former schoolteacher.
Steinbeck was a good student and president of his senior class in
high school. He attended Stanford intermittently between 1920 and
1925, then moved to New York City, where he worked as a manual laborer
and a journalist while writing stories and novels.
His first two novels were not successful. He married and moved to
Pacific Grove in 1930, where his father gave him a house and a small
income while he continued to write. His third novel, Tortilla
Flat (1935), was a critical and financial success, as were his
subsequent novels In Dubious Battle (1935) and Of Mice
and Men (1937), both of which offered social commentaries on
injustices of various types. His work after World War II, including
Cannery Row and The Pearl, continued to offer social
criticism but became more sentimental. Steinbeck tried his hand at
movie scripts in the 1940s, writing such successful films as Forgotten
Village (1941) and Viva Zapata (1952). He also took
up the serious study of marine biology and published a nonfiction
book, The Sea of Cortez, in 1941. His book Travels with
Charlie describes his trek across the US. in a camper truck with
his poodle, Charlie, and his encounters with a fragmented America.
Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in 1962 and died in New York in 1968.

^
1935 WPA puts unemployed back to work
The Works Progress Administration (WPA),
throws open its doors and begins the monumental task of sending scores
of unemployed Americans back to work.
Perhaps the key program developed during the New Deal, President Franklin
Roosevelt's "alphabet soup" of government agencies aimed at alleviating
the damage wrought by the Great Depression, the WPA handed Americans
decent-paying jobs on a myriad of public works projects. But, WPA
jobs were hardly sinecures; workers employed via the agency constructed
a head-spinning array of public structures, including parks, playgrounds,
schools and post-offices. And, through its creatively inclined arms
(the Federal Art Project and Federal Theater Project), the WPA set
painters, actors, musicians and writers to work on public arts projects
that depicted the lives of the US's workers.
All told, the WPA (which was renamed the Works Projects Administration
in 1939) was responsible for employing 8.5 million Americans during
its eight-year tenure. Despite these considerable fruits, the WPA
was an expensive program  the agency spent roughly $11 billion
during its lifetime  which prompted attacks from more penurious
voices in the nation. By the summer of 1943, World War II had almost
entirely usurped the efforts of America's work force, and the WPA
was permanently closed.

^1928 Chrysler introduces
the DeSoto
as the corporation's new brand. The DeSoto Six is Chrysler's answer
to the market demand for a car that fit between its large cars and
its popular four-cylinder models. Marketed in the moderate price class,
the DeSoto offers features that no car within comparable price range
had ever offered, such as improved insulation, a reinforced frame,
and chrome alloy steel transmission gears.
Introduced not long after Chrysler purchased Dodge, the DeSoto label
sold eighty thousand cars its first year, forcing Chrysler to increase
its production facilities. In the fall of 1936, after having moved
between various Chrysler plants, DeSoto moved to a production facility
of its own on the west side of Detroit. The new state-of-the-art facility
became one of Detroit's showcases for automobile production and one
of the city's most heavily visited tourist sites.
The interest in the DeSoto plant was partially a response to the company's
innovative 1934 release, the DeSoto Airflow. The Airflow created a
new standard for weight distribution in the automotive industry, reducing
vibration to a frequency that, for the first time, was comfortable
for passengers. Engineers moved the DeSoto's engine forward over the
front axle and increased the gauge of the front springs. Moving the
engine forward allowed the designers to move the back seat in front
of the rear axle, thereby reducing the shock inflicted on passengers
sitting there. The Airflow was also equipped with smaller wheels that
used larger tires, and a unibody design that made the car safer and
stronger.

1927 The first US coast-to-coast radio news
broadcast of tape-recorded news is made by Herbert Morrison, describing
the explosion of the Hindenburg in New Jersey. The recording is flown to
New York and broadcast on NBC.1919 El presidente
costarricense, Federico Tinoco, es depuesto y tropas estadounidenses desembarcan
en defensa de los intereses de EEUU.1916 The captain
of the battleship New Hampshire, off the coast of Virginia, calls
naval commanders in Washington, D.C.. The call is made as part of a test
to determine whether the radiotelephone presents a feasible communications
option during wartime.1895 José Martí es nombrado
jefe supremo de la revolución en la lucha por la independencia de Cuba. 1890 Mormon Church renounces polygamy.

^1876
The Duchess of Devonshire is sold for 10'000 guineas
Thomas Gainsborough's 1783 painting, Georgiana,
Duchess of Devonshire, is auctioned in London, England, nearly 100
years after it disappeared into obscurity. The portrait of Georgiana Spencer,
an ancestor of Princess Diana, sold for 10'000 guineas, the highest price
ever paid for a work of art up until this time. [< click on
image for full portrait] Public
interest in Gainsborough's masterpiece peaked a few weeks later when it
was stolen from the Thomas Agnew and Sons art gallery. Adam Worth, whom
Scotland Yard later called the "Napoleon of Crime," and upon whom Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle eventually based Sherlock Holmes' arch nemesis Dr. Moriarty,
stole the artwork in order to come up with the bail to release his brother
from jail. However, his brother was freed without his help, so Worth decided
to keep the painting, even in the face of serious consequences.
Adam Worth was perhaps the 19th century's most masterful criminal. Born
in Germany but raised in the United States, Worth joined the Union Army
in the Civil War. He then successfully faked his own death in order to escape
his duty. He spent the rest of the war hopping from one regiment to another,
collecting money to join and then immediately deserting.
After the war, he made his way to New York, where he joined a gang of pickpockets.
A conviction for robbery resulted in a three-year sentence at Sing Sing
Prison. However, Worth escaped after only a few weeks and vowed to be more
careful in the future. Using the alias Henry Raymond, Worth took up a lucrative
career robbing banks before moving his criminal exploits to Europe. With
perfectly planned heists and a consistent forgery operation, Worth avoided
all violent encounters and established himself in respectable society.
Yet the theft of the Duchess of Devonshire
led to his eventual downfall. His co-conspirators, Joe Elliot and Junka
Phillips, were angered by the fact that they weren't financially rewarded
for stealing the valuable painting. When Worth refused to divulge its whereabouts,
Elliot and Phillips went to the police and Worth was sent to prison, albeit
on other charges. Following his release
four years later in 1897, Worth returned to America. After a change of heart,
he began negotiations with the Pinkerton Detective Agency for the ransom
of the painting. The Duchess of Devonshire was finally returned
to England in 1901 where J. P. Morgan, Wall Street's biggest financier,
promptly made the journey to obtain the painting for himself. He is said
to have paid as much as $150'000 for it. Worth, who had received relatively
little for his ransom, died a year later, penniless.

^1626 Manhattan
Island bought for $24
According to legend, Manhattan, a twenty-eight-square mile island
along the Hudson River, was purchased by Dutch settler Peter Minuit
from the local Native people for merchandise valued at twenty-four
dollars. In 1624, the Dutch colony
of New Netherland was founded, with the town of New Amsterdam on the
lower tip of Manhattan established as its key settlement. Peter Minuit
was subsequently sent by the Dutch West India Company to take charge
of its holdings in America, and in 1626, he formally purchased Manhattan
from the local tribe from which it derives it name.
The Manhattans, Indians of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock,
did not understand European customs of property and contract and it
was not long before they came into armed conflict with the rapidly
expanding Dutch settlement at New Amsterdam. Beginning in 1640, a
protracted war was fought between the colonists and the Manhattans,
ending five years later with the tribe practically exterminated.
In 1664, without resistance, Dutch
governor Peter Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to a British naval
force under Colonel Richard Nicolls, ending the Netherlands' colonial
role in the New World. With the departure of the Dutch, the name of
the promising settlement was changed to New York, in honor of the
duke of York.

1571 El Adelantado de Filipinas, Don Miguel López de Legazpi,
conquista Manila tras someter al rajalí Lacandola y a los principales jefes
isleños.1527 Forty thousand mercenaries, hired
by Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, sack the city of Rome, destroying two-thirds
of the houses. They butcher clergy and laity alike, and force Clement VII
to flee, disguised as a gardener. It is the end of the golden age of the
Renaissance.1497 Se emite la real cédula por la
que se declara libre de impuestos el comercio de las Indias Americanas.1432 Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, 61, finishes the Adoration
of the Lamb altarpiece for St. John's Church in Ghent, Belgium.
 MORE
AT ART 4 MAY with links to images.

2006
Three workers, when a wooden and metal supporting frame collapses
at a high rise hotel-condo construction project in Bal Harbour, Florida.
They fall from the 27th-floor level, where they were pouring the concrete
roof to the 26th floor and a one-meter layer of fast-drying concrete falls
on top of them. — (060507)2006 Wing Commander
John Coxen [1959–]; Navy Lieutenant Commander Darren
Chapman, 40; Flight Lieutenant Sarah Mulvihill,
32; Navy Lieutenant David Ian Dobson, 27; and Marine
Paul M. Collins, 21; who are all those aboard a British military
Lynx helicopter shot down by a rocket in Basra, Iraq. — (060508)2004:: 41 Mehdi Army militiamen, killed in fighting across
the Euphrates River from Najaf, Iraq, in fighting against US forces, who
do not report their own casualties. The Mehdi is anti-US Islamic cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr's private militia.2001 Muhammad Abayat, 48,
by an Israeli tank shell. Abayat was a member of the Tanzim militia,
linked to the Fatah movement of Arafat. A few kilometers south of Jerusalem,
Palestinian gunmen had opened fire on Israeli border policemen guarding
a highway that links Jerusalem to Jewish settlements in the West Bank..
The Israeli army responded by sending tanks several hundred meters into
Palestinian-controlled land, where they fired dozens of rounds at Palestinian
gunmen taking cover in homes in Beit Jalla. At least 20 other Palestinians
were hurt, including a 5-year-old boy seriously injured by shrapnel, and
an 11-year-old girl hit in the eye. One Israeli soldier was lightly injured.1996 Austin Bastable, a Canadian who has multiple sclerosis,
commits suicide, with the assistance of Dr. Kevorkian. (Mr. Bastable is
the 28th person that Kevorkian assisted to commit suicide.)
1987 William J. Casey, 73, director of CIA (1981-1987)1983
Yudell
Leo Luke, US mathematician born on 26 June 1918.1963
Theodore
von Kármán, Hungarian US aeronautical mathematician
born on 11 May 1881.1951 Elie
Joseph Cartan, French, born on 09 April 1869, he was one of
the most important mathematicians of the first half of the 20th century.
He worked on continuous groups, Lie algebras, differential equations, and
geometry, achieving a synthesis between these areas.

^
1937: 36 persons in the Hindenburg
Disaster
The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride
of Nazi Germany, burst into flames upon touching its mooring mast
in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 35 of the 97 people on board and
a Navy crewman on the ground.
Rigid airships, often known by the last name of their inventor, Count
Ferdinand von Zeppelin, were first developed by the Germans in the
early twentieth century. The heavy steel-framed Zeppelins were far
larger than the airships developed by the French decades before, but
size was exchanged for safety as Zeppelins were vulnerable to explosion
because they had to be lifted by highly flammable hydrogen gas, instead
of non-flammable helium gas. Large enough to carry substantial numbers
of passengers, one of the most famous rigid airships was the Graf
Zeppelin, a dirigible that traveled around the world in 1929.
In the 1930s, the Graf Zeppelin also pioneered the first
transatlantic air service, leading to the construction of the Hindenburg,
a larger passenger airship. On
03 May 1937, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt, Germany,
for its first of ten scheduled journey's across the Atlantic to Lakehurst's
Navy Air Base. On its maiden voyage, the Hindenburg, 245
meters long, carried thirty-six passengers and crew of sixty-one.
While attempting to moor at Lakehurst, the airship suddenly burst
into flames, probably after a static spark from the stormy atmosphere
ignited not its hydrogen core (as commonly believed) but its flammable
surface coating. Rapidly falling sixty meters to the ground, the hull
of the airship incinerated within seconds. Fourteen passengers, twenty-one
crewmen, and one member of the ground crew lost their lives, and most
of the survivors suffered substantial injuries. Radio announcer Herb
Morrison, who came to Lakehurst to record a routine voice-over for
an NBC newsreel, immortalized the Hindenberg disaster in a famous
on-the-scene description in which he emotionally declared "Oh, the
humanity!" The recording of Morrison's commentary was immediately
flown to New York, where it was aired as part of America's first coast-to-coast
radio news broadcast. Lighter-than-air passenger travel rapidly fell
out of favor after the Hindenberg disaster and no existing rigid airship
survived World War II.

^1910 Edward VII,
king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the
British dominions and emperor of India from 1901.
He was born on 09 November 1841, the second child and eldest son of
Queen Victoria [24 May 1819 –
22 Jan 1901] and the Prince Consort Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha [26
Aug 1819 – 14 Dec 1861]. He was made prince of Wales and earl
of Chester by his mother when he was one month old. He attended the
universities of both Oxford and Cambridge. His dalliance with an actress
while serving with an Army unit in Ireland (June–September 1861)
caused Victoria to hold him partly responsible for the death of the
prince consort, who had indeed taken his son's brief liaison much
to heart before succumbing to typhoid. Subsequently, Victoria excluded
her heir from any real initiation into affairs of state. Not until
he was more than 50 years old was he informed of Cabinet proceedings.
On 10 March 1863, the prince of Wales
married Alexandra [01 Dec 1844 – 20 Nov 1925], eldest daughter
of Prince Christian (later King Christian IX) of Denmark. Five children
of this union survived to maturity. George, duke of York, subsequently
King George V [03 Jun 1865 – 20 Jan 1936], was the second son.
Alexandra was preoccupied with her immediate family, but the prince
moved in a considerably wider circle, both at home and on the Continent,
becoming a familiar figure in the sporting world. He was particularly
given to racing, yachting, and game-bird shooting. His social activities
involved him in several scandals.
He succeeded to the throne as Edward VII following Victoria's death,
and was crowned on 09 August 1902. His reign did much to restore luster
to a monarchy that had shone somewhat dimly during Victoria's long
seclusion as a widow. In 1902 he resumed his tours of Europe. His
geniality and felicitously worded addresses (in French) during a state
visit to Paris in 1903 helped pave the way, by winning popularity
among French citizens of all ranks, for the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale
of 1904. Relations with his nephew the German emperor William II [27
Jan 1859 – 04 Jun 1941] were not always easy, either officially
or personally. Although incapable of prolonged mental exertion, Edward
was fortunate in his judgment of men. His support for the great military
reforms of the secretary of state for war, Richard Burdon (later Viscount)
Haldane [30 Jul 1856 – 19 Aug 1928], and for the First Sea Lord
Sir John Fisher [25 Jan 1841 – 10 Jul 1920] in his naval reforms
did much to avert British unpreparedness when World War I started.

1904 Franz Seraph von Lenbach, German artist born on 13 December
1836. MORE
ON VON LENBACH AT ART 4 DECEMBER with links to images.1903 José Jiménez
y Aranda, Spanish painter born on 07 February 1837. — more1882 Lord Cavendish assassinated at Dublin, Ireland

^1864 Rebs and
Yanks continue massacring each other at the Wilderness
Union and Confederate troops continue
their desperate struggle in the Wilderness, which was the opening
battle in the biggest campaign of the war. General Ulysses S. Grant,
commander of the Union forces, had joined George Meade's Army of the
Potomac to encounter Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in
the tangled Wilderness forest near Chancellorsville, the site of Lee's
brilliant victory the year before. The fighting was intense, and raging
fires that consumed the dead and wounded magnified the horror of battle.
But little was gained in the confused attacks by either side. On 06
May, the second day of battle in the Wilderness, Grant sought to break
the stalemate by sending Winfield Hancock's corps against the Confederate
right flank at the southern end of the battle line. The Federals were
on the verge of breaking through the troops of James Longstreet when
they stumbled in the dense undergrowth. Lee entered the fray to rally
the Confederate troops, but his devoted solders urged him away from
the action. Later in the morning,
Longstreet's men attacked Hancock's forces and seemed poised to turn
the Union flank. But, like the Union troops earlier, they became disoriented
as they drove Hancock's troops back. In the confusion, Longstreet
was wounded by his own men, just six kilometers from the spot where
Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded by his own men the year before.
The Confederate attack halted when Hancock's men found refuge behind
hastily constructed breastworks.
In the evening, Lee attacked the Union flank at the northern end of
the battlefield and nearly turned the Federal line. Grant's men, however,
held their ground, leaving the exhausted armies in nearly the same
positions as when the battle began.
In two days, the Union lost 17'000 men to the Confederates' 11'000.
This was nearly one-fifth of each army. Unfortunately, the worst was
yet to come. Grant pulled his men out of the Wilderness on May 7,
but, unlike the commanders before him in the eastern theater, he did
not go back. He moved further south towards Spotsylvania Court House
and closer to Richmond. At Spotsylvania, the armies staged some of
the fiercest fighting of the war.

1856 William
Hamilton, Scottish methaphysician and mathematical logician
born on 08 March 1788.1849 Jacques Nicolas Paillot de Montabert,
French artist born in December or on 06 October 1771.1840
James Sillett (or Selleth), Belgian artist born in 1764.1840
Francisco de Paula Santander, born on 02 April 1792, soldier and
statesman who fought beside Simón Bolívar in the war for South American
independence and who served as president of the newly formed New Granada
(Colombia) from 01 April 1833 until 1837.

1793 METÉ Gilles, journalier, domicilié à Camonel (Morbihan),
est comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.1684 Heyman Dullaert, Duch aertist born on 06 February
1636.  [Hey man! He may not have been Brightaert, Sharpaert, or even
Finaert, but these names bring up no more samples of aertwork on the Internet
than does Dullaert, or Dumbaert for that matter]1679 Nicolas
Pierre Loir (or Loyr), French painter and engraver born in 1624.
— more1642
Frans Francken II, dies on his 61st birthday, Flemish painter.
 MORE
ON FRANCKEN AT ART 4 MAY
with links to images.1629 Otto van Veen, Flemish
painter born in 1556. MORE
ON VAN VEEN AT ART 4 MAYwith
links to images.1475 Dieric Bouts the Elder, Dutch
painter born in 1412.  MORE
ON BOUTS AT ART 4 MAY with
links to images.1452 Bicci di Lorenzo, Italian artist
born in 1373.

1953
Anthony Charles Lynton“Tony”
Blair, British Prime Minister (Labour Party) from 02 May 1997
to 27 June 2007. An Anglican, he married (on 29 March 1980) a Catholic,
Cherie
Booth [23 Sep 1954~], and, on 21 December 2007, he was received into
the Catholic Church. —(071224)

^
1949 EDSAC, the first stored-program
computer EDSAC,
the world's first practical stored-program computer, comes to life
in Cambridge, England. EDSAC's predecessor, ENIAC, had to be wired
especially for each type of problem it was given. Reprogramming ENIAC
could take hours or days of pulling and replugging patch cords.
Scientist John Von Neumann of the Institute
for Advanced Study at Princeton had suggested ways to implement memory
and stored programs on ENIAC, and his principles were implemented
in England by Maurice Wilkes of Cambridge University. The invention
of the stored-program computer was a major step toward the modern
computer age.

1915 Orson Welles Kenosha Wisc, actor (War of the Worlds,
Citizen Kane, The Mercury Radio Theatre of the Air, The Long Hot Summer,
A Man for All Seasons, MacBeth, Moby Dick, Casino Royale, Catch-22)

^
1906 André Weil,
mathematician.Weil
is born in Paris, of Jewish parents. He would study at universities
in Paris, Rome and Göttingen, receiving his D.Sc. from the University
of Paris in 1928. He then taught at different universities for example
the Aligarh Muslim University in India from 1930 to 1932, and the
University of Strasbourg, France from 1933 until the outbreak of World
War II. The
war was a disaster for Weil who was a conscientious objector and so
wished to avoid military service. He fled to Finland as soon as war
was declared in an attempt to avoid becoming forced into the army,
but it was not a simple matter to escape from the war in Europe at
this time. He was sent from Finland back to France where he was put
in prison. Weil was certainly in great danger at this time, partly
because he was Jewish, partly because he had a sister, Simone Weil
who was a mystic philosopher and a leading figure in the French Résistance.
The dangers of his predicament made Weil decide that being in the
army was a better bet and he was able to argue successfully for his
release on the condition that he join the army.
Having used the army as a reason to get out of prison, Weil had no
intention of serving any longer than he possibly could. As soon as
the chance to escape to the US came, he took it at once. In the US
he went to Pennsylvania where he taught from 1941 at Haverford College
and at Swarthmore College. In 1945 he accepted a position in Sao Paulo
University, Brazil where he remained until 1947. In 1947 Weil returned
to the United States and he was appointed to the faculty of the University
of Chicago, a position he continued to hold until 1958. In 1948-49,
John Canu and his father, a visiting professor at Chicago that year,
were often guests of Weil. From 1958 Weil worked at the Institute
for Advanced Study at Princeton University. He retired in 1976, becoming
Professor Emeritus at that time.
Weil's research was in number theory, algebraic
geometry and group theory. His work can be summarized thus:
Beginning in the 1940s, Weil started the rapid advance of algebraic
geometry and number
theory by laying the foundations for abstract algebraic
geometry and the modern theory of abelian varieties. His
work on algebraic curves has influenced a wide variety of areas, including
some outside mathematics, such as elementary particle physics and
string theory. In fact Weil's work in this area was basic to
work by mathematicians such as Yau
who was awarded a Fields Medal in 1982 for work in three-dimensional
algebraic
geometry which has major applications to quantum field
theory. Yau is not the only mathematician
who received a Fields
Medal for work which continued that begun by Weil. In 1978 Deligne
was awarded a Fields Medal for solving the Weil Conjectures. Here
is a description of Weil's fundamental contribution: One of Weil's
major achievements was his proof of the Riemann
hypothesis for the congruence zeta
functions of algebraic function fields. In 1949 he raised
certain conjectures about the congruence zeta
function of algebraic varieties over finite fields. These
Weil conjectures, as they came to be called, grew out of his deep
insight into the topology
of algebraic varieties and provided guiding principles for subsequent
developments in the field. Weil's work on bringing together number
theory and algebraic
geometry was highly fruitful. The foundations of many topics
studied in depth today were laid by Weil in this work, such as the
foundations of the theory of modular forms, automorphic functions
and automorphic representations.
However, Weil's work was of major importance in a number of other
new mathematical topics. He contributed substantially to topology,
differential
geometry and complex analytic geometry. It was not just
to these areas that he contributed but, even more importantly, his
work brought out fundamental relationships between the areas when
he studied harmonic analysis on topological
groups and characteristic classes. Also bringing these
areas together was his work on the geometric theory of the theta function
and Kähler geometry. Together
with Dieudonné
and others, Weil wrote under the name Nicolas Bourbaki, a project
they began in the 1930s, in which they attempted to give a unified
description of mathematics. The purpose was to reverse a trend which
they disliked, namely that of a lack of rigour in mathematics. The
influence of Bourbaki has been great over many years but it is now
less important since it has basically succeeded in its aim of promoting
rigour and abstraction. Weil's
most famous books include Foundations of Algebraic
Geometry (1946) and Elliptic
Functions According to Eisenstein
and Kronecker
(1976). Weil received many honors
for his outstanding mathematics. Among these has been honorary membership
of the London Mathematical Society in 1959 and election to a Fellowship
of the Royal Society of London in 1966. In addition he has been elected
to the Academy of Sciences in Paris and to the National Academy of
Sciences in the United States.
Weil was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians
in 1950 at Harvard and again at the following International Congress
in 1954. In 1979 Weil was awarded the Wolf Prize and, in the following
year, the American Mathematical Society awarded him their Steele Prize.
In 1994 he received the Kyoto Prize from the Inamori Foundation of
Japan ... for outstanding achievement and creativity. The
citation for the Kyoto Prize reads: The results achieved and problems
raised by André Weil through his deep understanding of and
sharp insight into mathematical sciences in general will continue
to have immeasurable influence on the development of mathematical
sciences, and to contribute greatly to the development of science,
as well as the deepening and uplifting of the human spirit. Weil
died on 06 August 1998.
Quotations by André Weil
Every mathematician worthy of the name has experienced ... the state
of lucid exaltation in which one thought succeeds another as if miraculously...
this feeling may last for hours at a time, even for days. Once you
have experienced it, you are eager to repeat it but unable to do it
at will, unless perhaps by dogged work... The Apprenticeship of
a Mathematician.
God exists since mathematics is consistent, and the Devil exists since
we cannot prove it.
Rigor is to the mathematician what morality is to men.
First rate mathematicians choose first rate people, but second rate
mathematicians choose third rate people.
André
Weil: A Prologue / André
Weil (1906  1998) / André
Weil and Algebraic Topology / André
Weil as I Knew Him / The
Apprenticeship of a Mathematician  -Autobiography of André Weil
// Fermat's
Last Theorem

1898 Francisco Bores López, Spanish painter who
died in May 1972 — more
with links to images.1896 Zygmunt Menkes, Polish
artist who died in 1986.1893 Wilhelm Kohlhoff, German
artist who died in 19711889 Eiffel Tower, completed
for the Universal Exposition which opens in Paris.1880 Ernst
Ludwig Kirchner, German Expressionist
painter and sculptor who commited suicide on 15 June 1938 after destroying
much of his artwork, despondent over the persecution by the Nazis. 
MORE
ON KIRCHNER AT ART 4 JUNE
with links to images. 1875 William Daniel Leahy
Iowa, 5 star adimiral/chief of staff (1949)1872 Willem
de Sitter, Dutch astronomer and mathematician who cooperated
with Einstein and made advances in the theory of relativity. De Sitter died
on 20 November 1934. [De Sitter was not the sitter in any painted portrait
that I could discover.] 1870 Amedos Peter Giannini
San Jose Calif, founded Bank of America1861 Rabindranath
Tagore (Nobel prize-winner: literature [1913]; Hindu poet, mystic,
musical composer).

^
1861 “Pandit” Motilal
Nehru, eminent Indian lawyer and politician, who died
on 06 February 1931. He was the father of Jahawarlal “Pandit”
Nehru [14 Nov 1889 – 27 May 1964],
first Prime Minister of India, from its 15 August 1947 independence
to his death.
The Nehru family was from Kashmir, but had settled in Delhi since
the beginning of the eighteenth century. Motilal's grandfather, Lakshmi
Narayan, became the first Vakil of the East India Company at the Mughal
Court of Delhi. Motilal's father, Gangadhar, was a police officer
in Delhi in 1857, when it was engulfed by the Mutiny. When the British
troops shelled their way into the town, Gangadhar fled with his wife
Jeorani and four children to Agra where he died four years later.
Three months after his death Jeorani gave birth to a boy who was named
Motilal. Motilal spent his childhood at Khetri in Rajasthan, where
his elder brother Nandial became the Diwan. In 1870 Nandlal quit Khetri,
qualified as a lawyer and began to practice law at Agra. When the
High Court was transferred to Allahabad, he moved with it.
Meanwhile Motilal passed the matriculation examination from Kanpur
and joined the Muir Central College at Allahabad. Athletic, fond of
outdoor sports, specially wrestling, brimming over with an insatiable
curiosity and zest for life, he soon attracted the attention of Principal
Harrison and his British colleagues, in the Muir Central College,
who took a strong liking to this intelligent, lively and restless
Kashmiri youth. Motilal decided
to become a lawyer, topped the list of successful candidates in the
Vakil's examination in 1883, set up as a lawyer at Kanpur, but three
years later shifted to Allahabad where his brother Nandlal had a lucrative
practice at the High Court. Unfortunately, Nandlal died in April 1887
at the age of forty-two, leaving behind five sons and two daughters.
Young Motilal found himself, at the age of twenty-five, as the head
of a large family, its sole bread-winner.
In 1889 Motilal's wife Swarup Rani gave birth to a son, who was named
Jawaharlal. Two daughters, Sarup (later Vijayalakshmi Pandit) and
Krishna (later Krishna Hutheesing) were born in 1900 and 1907 respectively.
In 1900 Motilal purchased a house at Allahabad, rebuilt it, and named
it Anand Bhawan (the abode of happiness). His legal practice was meanwhile
growing. A rise in his standard of living was paralleled by a progressive
westernization, a process which was accelerated by his visits to Europe
in 1899 and 1900. Thorough-going changes, from knives and forks at
the dining table to European governesses and tutors for the children,
ensued. In May 1905 Motilal again
sailed for Europe, this time with his whole family. He returned in
November of the same year after putting Jawaharlal to school at Harrow.
From Harrow, Jawaharlal went to Cambridge where he took a Tripos in
Natural Science before being called to the Bar in 1912.
Motilal's early incursions into politics were reluctant, brief and
sporadic. The list of 1400 delegates of the Allahabad Congress (1888)
includes: "Pandit Motilal, Hindu, Brahmin, Vakil, High Court, N.W.P.
(North-Western Provinces)." He attended some of the subsequent sessions
of the Congress, but unlike his Allahabad contemporary Madan Mohan
Malaviya, he was no more than a passive spectator. It was the tug-of-war
between the Moderates and the Extremists in the aftermath of the Partition
of Bengal which drew Motilal into the arena and, strangely enough,
on the side of the Moderates. In 1907 he presided over a Provincial
Conference of the Moderate politicians at Allahabad.
In 1909 he was elected a member of the U.P. Council. He attended the
Delhi Durbar in 1911 in honor of the visit of King George V and Queen
Mary, became a member of the Allahabad Municipal Board and of the
All India Congress Committee. He was elected President of the U.P.
Congress. Nevertheless, it was not politics but domestic and professional
pre-occupations which were the dominant interest of his life during
this period. But from 1912 onwards when Jawaharlal returned from England,
there were forces at work, both at home and in the country, which
were to lead Motilal into the maelstrom of national politics.
The First World War generated deep
discontent in several sectors of Indian Society which found a focus
in the Home Rule Movement. Motilal had been reluctant to join the
Home Rule League, but the internment of Mrs. Besant in June 1917 brought
him into the fray. He became the President of the Allahabad branch
of the Home Rule League. Now began a perceptible shift in Motilal's
politics. In August 1918 he parted company with his Moderate friends
on the constitutional issue, and attended the Bombay Congress which
demanded radical changes in the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms. On 05
February 1919 he launched a new daily paper, The Independent,
to counter the well-established local daily paper, The Leader,
which was much too moderate for Motilal's taste in 1919.
The emergence of Mahatma Gandhi on the Indian political stage changed
the course of Indian history; it also profoundly influenced the life
of Motilal Nehru and his family. The Rowlatt Bills and the publication
of the Satyagraha pledge in February 1919 deeply stirred Jawaharlal;
he felt an irresistible call to follow the Mahatma. Motilal was not
the man to be easily swept off his feet; his legal background predisposed
him against any extra-constitutional agitation. It was clear to both
father and son that they were at the crossroads. Neither was prepared
to give in, but at Motilal's instance Gandhi intervened and counseled
young Nehru to be patient. Shortly
afterwards events marched to a tragic climax in the Punjab; the holocaust
of Jallianwala Bagh was followed by Martial Law. Motilal did what
he could to bring succor and solace to that unhappy province. He gave
his time freely, at the cost of his own legal practice, to the defense
of scores of helpless victims of Martial Law, who had been condemned
to the gallows or sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.
Elected to preside over the Amritsar Congress (December 1919), Motilal
was in the center of the gathering storm which pulled down many familiar
landmarks during the following year. He was the only front rank leader
to lend his support to non-cooperation at the special Congress at
Calcutta in September 1920. Motilal's fateful decision to cast in
his lot with Mohandas Karamchand “Mahatma” Gandhi [02
Oct 1869 – 30 Jan 1948] was no doubt influenced by the tragic
chain of events in 1919. Apart from the compulsion of events, there
was another vital factor without which he may not have made, in his
sixtieth year, a clean break with his past and plunged into the unknown.
This was the unshakeable resolve of his son to go the way of Satyagraha.
Immediately after the Calcutta Congress
Motilal resigned from the U.P. Council, abandoned his practice at
the Bar, curtailed the vast retinue of servants in Anand Bbawan, changed
his style of living, consigned cartloads of foreign finery to public
bonfires and put on khadi. In December
1921 both father and son were arrested and sentenced to six months'
imprisonment. In February 1922 came the anti-climax, when Gandhi first
announced and then suddenly cancelled mass civil disobedience. In
March the Mahatma himself was arrested, tried for sedition and sentenced
to six years' imprisonment. When
Motilal came out of prison in the summer of 1922, he found that the
movement had declined, the Congress organization was distracted by
internal squabbles, and the constructive program could not evoke the
enthusiasm of the intelligentsia. Motilal felt that the time had come
to revise the program of non-cooperation so as to permit entry into
Legislative Councils. This revision was resisted by those who regarded
themselves as the faithful followers of the Mahatma. A long and bitter
controversy, which nearly split the Congress, ensued. However, Motilal
and C. R. Das founded the Swarajya Party in January 1923, had their
way, and contested the elections at the end of 1923. The Swarajya
Party was the largest Party in the Central Legislative Assembly as
well as in some of the Provincial Legislatures. From 1925 onwards
it was recognized by the Congress as its political wing.
For the next six years Motilal was the leader of the Opposition in
the Legislative Assembly. With his commanding personality, incisive
intellect, great knowledge of law, brilliant advocacy, ready wit and
combative spirit, he seemed to be cut out for a Parliamentary role.
The Legislative Assembly, however, was no Parliament. It was a hybrid
legislature elected on a narrow and communal franchise; it had a solid
bloc of official, nominated, European and some Indian members who
took their cue from the irremovable executive. At first Motilal was
able to secure sufficient support from the Moderate and the Muslim
legislators to outvote the Government. He ruled his own party with
an iron hand, but found his task increasingly difficult from 1926
onwards when communal and personal squabbles divided and weakened
the Swarajya Party. Towards the
end of 1927, with the appointment of the Simon Commission, there came
a political revival. The exclusion of Indians from the Commission
united Indian parties in opposition to the Government. An All-Parties
Conference was convened by Dr. Ansari, the Congress President, and
a Committee, including Tej Bahadur Sapru and headed by Motital, was
appointed to determine the principles of a constitution for free India.
The report of the Committee - the Nehru Report as it came to be called
- attempted a solution of the communal problem which unfortunately
failed to receive the support of a vocal section of Muslim opinion
led by the Aga Khan and Jinnah.
The Nehru Report, representing as it did the highest common denominator
among a number of heterogeneous Parties was based on the assumption
that the new Indian Constitution would be based on Dominion Status.
This was regarded as a climb-down by a radical wing in the Congress
led by Subhash Bose and Motilal's own son who founded the "Independence
for India League". The Calcutta Congress (December 1928) over which
Motilal presided was the scene of a head-on clash between those who
were prepared to accept Dominion Status and those who would have nothing
short of complete independence. A split was averted by a via media
proposed by Gandhi, according to which if Britain did not concede
Dominion Status within a year, the Congress was to demand complete
independence and to fight for it, if necessary, by launching civil
disobedience. The way was thus
opened for Gandhi's return to active politics and for the revival
of Satyagraha. Motilal was at first more amused than impressed by
Gandhi's plans for the breach of the salt laws, but as the movement
caught on. It found him against the advice of his doctors in the center
of the political arena. He was arrested and imprisoned; but his health
gave way and he was released. But there could be no peace for him
when most of his family was in prison and the whole of India was passing
through a baptism of fire. In the last week of January 1931 Gandhi
and the Congress Working Committee were released by the Government
as a gesture in that chain of events which was to lead to the Gandhi-lrwin
Pact. Motilal had the satisfaction of having his son and Gandhi beside
him in his last days. Motilal had
a rational, robust, secular and fearless outlook on life. A brilliant
lawyer, an eloquent speaker, a great parliamentarian, and a greater
organizer, Motilal was one of the most notable and attractive figures
of Indian nationalism in the Gandhi era.

1857 Frank Bramley, British artist who died on 09 August
1915.  MORE
ON BRAMLEY AT ART 4 AUGUST
with links to images. 1856 Sigmund Freud, cigar
smoker, father of psychiatry 1856 Robert Edward Peary
arctic explorer (North Pole-1909) discoverer of the North Pole, Greenland,
and the Melville meteorite 1851 Refrigeration machine
is patented by Dr. John Gorrie. El Dr. John Farrie obtiene la patente
de su "maquina de refrigerar".1849 John Melhuish Strudwick,
British Pre-Raphaelite
painter who died on 16 July 1937.  MORE
ON STRUDWICK AT ART 4 JULY
with links to images. 1840 first postage stamps
issued (Great Britain)1833 Steel plow: the first
one is made by John Deere.1823 Johann Batholomäus Duntze,
German artist who died in 1895.1807 Moritz Karl Friedrich
Müller, German artist who died on 08 November 1865.1801
Auguste Flandrin, Lyon French painter and printmaker, who died
on 30 August 1842. — more
with link to an image.1769 Jean
Nicolas Pierre Hachette, French mathematician who died on 16
January 1834. He was son of bookseller Jean-Pierre Hachette,
1758 Maximilien-François-Marie-Isidore Robespierre, Arras,
French revolutionary / avocat (1781). He was responsible for many heads
chopped off by the guillotine, including, on 10 Thermidor An II (28 July
1794), his own, in the Thermidorian Reaction against his reign of Terror
through the Comité de Salut Public.

^
1758 André Masséna,
in Nice, leading French general of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic
wars, who died on 04 April 1817
Orphaned at an early age, Masséna enlisted in the Royal Italian regiment
in the French service in 1775. At the outbreak of the French Revolution
in 1789, he was a sergeant at Antibes. He soon became a captain in
the Revolutionary government's army of Italy at Nice, and in December
1793 he was made general of a division.
During the next two years in campaigns against the Austrians in Italy,
Masséna displayed a genius for maneuvering his forces over difficult
terrain. Becoming the most trusted lieutenant of Napoléon Bonaparte
[15 Aug 1769 – 05 May 1821]
during the Italian campaign of 1796–1797, he won the Battle of Rivoli
(14 Jan 1797), a key victory in the successful drive against Mantua.
After Rome fell to the French in February 1798, Masséna was sent as
an assistant to the French commander there; a week after his arrival,
his troops mutinied and forced his recall. Nevertheless, in March
1799 he was made commander of the French army in Switzerland. He defeated
a large Russian army in the Second Battle of Zürich on 25 September
1799 and then prevented another Russian army from advancing into Italy.
These victories saved France from the immediate threat of invasion.
Shortly after Napoléon came
to power in the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire (09 Nov 1799), Masséna
was sent to command the badly demoralized army of Italy. He restored
his troops' fighting spirit, and, by holding out against Austrian
besiegers at Genoa from 21 April to 04 June 1800, he enabled Napoleon
to maneuver into position behind the enemy and win the Battle of Marengo
(14 June 1800), forcing the Austrians to evacuate most of northern
Italy. Although Masséna
was made a marshal in 1804, he had little respect for Napoléon's
imperial regime. He reconquered Calabria from the British in 1806
and in 1808 was made duc de Rivoli. In 1809 he displayed stunning
heroism in two important battles against the Austrians, at Aspern-Essling
(near Vienna) on 21 May and 22 May 1809 and at Wagram on 05 July and
06 July 1809. Napoléon rewarded him with the title prince d'Essling
in January 1810. Three months later Masséna, in poor health, was given
command of the French forces that were fighting the British in Portugal.
The British commander, Arthur Wellesley, duke of Wellington [01
May 1769 – 14 Sep 1852], defeated him at Buçaco, Portugal,
on 27 September 1810, and at Fuentes de Oñoro, Spain, on 05 May 1811.
Masséna was then relieved of his command. He was in Paris in 1815
but took no part in the Hundred Days of Napoléon; instead he
supported the restoration of King Louis XVIII [17 Nov 1755 –
16 Sep 1824] to the French throne. .

1688 Charles Parrocel, French painter and engraver who
died on 24 (25?) May 1752 — more 1581 Frans Francken II, Flemish painter who would die
on his 61st birthday (see above)

^
0973 Henry II, duke
of Bavaria (as Henry IV, 995–1005), German king (from 1002), and Holy
Roman emperor (1014–1024), last of the Saxon dynasty of emperors.
He died on 13 July 1024. He was
canonized by Pope Eugenius III in 1146 in response to church-inspired
legends. He was, in fact, far from saintly, but there is some truth
in the legends concerning his religious character. Together with Henry
III, he was the great architect of cooperation between church and
state, following a policy inaugurated by Charlemagne and promoted
by Otto I the Great (Holy Roman emperor, 962–973). His canonization
is sometimes justified onthe grounds that he was a great representative
of the medieval German priestly kings.Henry
II became king of Germany in 1002 and Holy Roman emperor in 1014.
His mother was the Burgundian Princess Gisela. His father, Henry II
the Quarrelsome, duke of Bavaria, having been in rebellion against
two preceding German kings, was forced to spend long years in exile
from Bavaria. The younger Henry found refuge with Bishop Abraham of
Freising and was later educated at the Cathedral School of Hildesheim.
As he was exposed thus to strong church influence in his youth, religion
influenced him strongly. Contemporaries observed an ironic trait in
his character and were also impressed by his ability to intersperse
his speeches with biblical quotations. Though devoted to church ritual
and personal prayer, he was a tenacious and realistic politician,
not adverse to alliances with heathen powers. Usually in poor health,
he yet performed for 22 years the office of the itinerant king, riding
on horseback through his dominions to judge and compose feuds, pursue
rebels, and extend the power of the crown.
After the death of King
Otto III [Jul 980 – 23 Jan 1002], Henry, aware of strong
opposition to his succession, captured the royal insignia that were
in the keeping of the dead king's companions. At Otto's funeral the
majority of the princes declared against Henry, and only in June,
with the assistance of Archbishop Willigis of Mainz, did Henry secure
both election and coronation. It took another year before his recognition
was final. Henry first turned his
attention to the east and made war against the Polish king Boleslaw
I the Brave. After a successful campaign, he marched into northern
Italy to subdue Arduin of Ivrea, who had styled himself king of Italy.
His sudden interference led to bitter fighting and atrocities, and
although Henry was crowned king in Pavia on 15 May 1004, he returned
home, without defeating Arduin, to pursue his campaigns against Boleslaw.
In 1003 Henry had made a pact with the Liutitian tribe against the
Christian Boleslaw, and he allowed the Liutitians to resist German
missionaries east of the Elbe River. Henry was more interested inconsolidating
his own political power than in spreading Christianity. Supported
by his tribal allies, he waged several campaigns against Poland, until
in 1018, at Bautzen, he made a lasting compromise peace with the Poles.
Sensitive to tradition and anxious
to be crowned emperor, Henry decided in late 1013 on another expedition
to Italy. He marched straight to Rome, where he was crowned Holy Roman
emperor by Pope Benedict VIII [–09 Apr 1024], on 14 February
1014. By May he was back in Germany, seeking to fulfill his duties
to Italy by charging German officials with the administration of the
country. Henry even convened an Italian imperial court at Strassburg
(now Strasbourg) in 1019. In 1020 Pope Benedict visited him in Germany
and begged him to put in another appearance in Italy to fight the
Greeks in the south and protect the papacy against the Lombard princes.
Henry reluctantly responded the following year, fighting both Greeks
and Lombards successfully; but he withdrew at the first opportunity.
Henry's main interest and success were
concentrated on the consolidation of a peaceful royal regime in Germany.
He spent much time and energy in elaborating the so-called Ottonian
system of government. Inaugurated by Otto
I [23 Nov 912 – 07 May 973],
this system was based upon the principle that the lands and the authority
of the bishops ought to be at the disposal of the king. Henry made
generous grants to the bishops and, by adding to their territorial
holdings, helped to establish them as secular rulers as well as ecclesiastical
princes. He freely availed himself of the royal right to appoint faithful
followers to these bishoprics. He insisted on episcopal celibacy,
to make sure that on the death of a bishop the see would not fall
into the hands of the bishop's children. In this way, he managed to
create a stable body of supporters who made him more and more independent
of rebellious nobles and ambitious members of his own family.
His greatest achievement was the foundation
of the new bishopric of Bamberg. The upper region of the Main River
was poorly populated, and Henry set aside large tracts of personal
property to establish the new bishopric, much against the wishes of
the bishop of Würzburg in the middle Main region. He obtained the
consent of other bishops at a synod in Frankfurt in late 1007. The
new bishop was consecrated on Henry's birthday in 1012. In 1020 Bamberg
was visited by the pope, and it quickly developed into a splendid
cathedral town where contemporary scholastic culture and art, as well
as piety, found the support of Henry and his queen, Cunegunda (who
was canonized in 1200). During the last years of his reign Henry planned,
in concert with Pope Benedict VIII, an ecclesiastical reform council
at Pavia to seal the system of ecclesiastico-political order he had
perfected in Germany. But he died suddenly in July 1024, before this
could be done.

Thoughts for the day:Hearts will never be practical til they're unbreakable.
Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.
 Frank Lloyd Wright, US architect [08 Jun 1867 – 09 Apr
1959] Homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright provide some luxuries,
but lack such necessities as a leakproof roof.”
"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in
a very narrow field.” — Niels Bohr [07 Oct 1885 –
18 Nov 1962], soccer player, Nobel-prize-winning physicist.